BloodMail
by Alphie Iota
Summary: With a mysterious grudge Ray Hierru makes his way to Fullmetal to settle a secret score. How much is real, how much is false? Some future chapters not suitable for children under 13. Some comic exaggeration, but very tragic.
1. False Memories

Blood-Mail

Story by Alphie Iota

After Hiromu Arakawa's

"Fullmetal Alchemist" © 2004 Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX

(*:Partial references to The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri)

It was white, extremely white. The bleached color of the room seemed to burn into my eyes.

"So...how did you like it?" A ghostly shade* was sitting in the room, just existing. I turned around to stare at the monstrous door that had been my tormentor. Strange symbols graced its wood, bleached of color by the white room.

"It was...everything" I whispered to myself.

"Not what you expected."

"Not what I expected." I mouthed to the door.

"Now to pay your toll." Darkness swept through the white room, I was disappearing, That Thing was taking everything from me, why was the truth so costly? "Fools trespass on fools' domain, all men must pay their toll, eventually." I could feel the creature's breath on my neck, _my_ breath on my neck. "So...was it worth it?"

As the the darkness consumed me I uttered one last breath, "Yes."

"Fool."

If I still had a mouth it would see me smirk. _Your the fool, fool._

"Get up, idiot." I opened my eyes, started. Under the sheets of the bed I could feel my pulse beating, warm and moist. I still had flesh and blood, what had happened? "Your lucky to be alive, the fact that I could give you back your flesh and blood is a miracle." I gazed back at the man stupidly. "If you don't remember I really am going to kill you."

"Of course!" I remembered everything, the secrets, the pain, and it. "The truth, but where..." I stared down at my hands.

"The rune is at the center of your back. Your legs, along with some of your torso, are auto-mail."

"Auto-mail." I whispered, after seeing it I thought that my whole body would be one big chunk of unfeeling steel. "How?"

The man only chuckled. "Do you think that the greatest alchemist in Arakamu would leave his best friend a hollow piece of metal? But, I only had the formula safe enough to transmute most of your torso, sorry."

I looked at Will in disbelief. "Will, this is more than enough." I looked down at the intricate auto-mail, the signature of the Alchemist/Auto-mail engineer. My real flesh was stretched flawlessly over hard metallic pieces, synchronized with my pulse and bone fragments. "I've seen some of your better work, but this is incredible."

"Ray, your the only Alchemist I know brave enough, or foolish enough, to cause a rebound strong enough-" The man stopped, unable to continue. "Your house is gone too, your research papers are...no more." I let out a sigh, that would be a draw-back, but...

"You think I'm good enough to get a state license?" He looked back at me, eyes unwavering.

"I think..." His brow furrowed in concentration. "That you could be a better alchemist than me." We both let out a big laugh.

I looked away, my gaze falling into space. "Fullmetal will pay."

"You're serious, aren't you?" Concern dripped into Will's voice.

"Don't be so worried." I said lightheartedly, "I can look after myself." My false sense of confidence quickly disintegrating under Will's icy leer.

"Show me your alchemy." I looked on, confused...

"But, the circle, the runes..."

"You don't need them." I looked on, helpless.

"Alright, but you might not like what you see." I got out of bed, at least I was clothed. "Here goes nothing!" I put my hand over my part auto-mail arm. A flash of light, then.

"Wow."

"No kidding." My arm had been transmuted, the flesh and steel intermingled into a gross new form. "Well, let's take this to the next level." I put my hands together, concentrating hard on my back. With a sickening crack, then the smell of blood, thin, leathery wings protruded from my back. My abdomen had shrunken, too. "This is going to be great, all I need is some more time to perfect it, then-"

"Wait, see if you can return to normal, I don't want you stuck like that."

"Okay." I felt the wings retract, my grotesque arm return to normal. Inside I felt fuller.

The sun was quickly running to hide behind the rolling hills. Has it really been that long? "What day is it?"

"The 22nd, why do you need a state license?"

"To regain something I've lost."


	2. Kowareta Sakuru

Blood-Mail

Story by Alphie Iota

After Hiromu Arakawa's "Fullmetal Alchemist"

© 2004 Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX

Kowareta Sakuru

"'Dâp quòmt xiém puhh népuhrpa hipun hylòjogh haygippya pòvu pòfuw vépp géx quw om hopq lixqua, kéoug lisigi quluge ome hòppéfuj pixqua, hòpumg huyjixs vìjj jifôte wunimh gi happyâ.' It's signed 'Kowareta Sakuru'" Ed finished reading the mysterious letter.

"It honestly sounds like gibberish to me." Stated Al.

"Or...it could be a code of some sort." Ed sighed.

"If anyone would know it would be you. I can't even read your code."

"Well, if its of an ancient language origin...developed from Latin with strong Japanese influence." Edward frowned at the letter. "...romanized Chinese..." after scratching his head he shrugged. "It's ether made-up or the inflection..."

"Maybe it's just gibberish?"

"Wait, maybe, just maybe the inflection, with some minor variations...Latin..."

"That's not Latin."

"Or French!"

"Just stop!" a sudden silence sliced through the scene. "I think you're making more out of this then you should. It was a letter you found on the ground, please just let it go!" Al produced a round sound which seemed to personify his large body.

"Maybe a cypher."

"Your going to kill yourself with this!"

"What's with the morbid foreshadowing? Oh! I have it..." The two looked on at the little letter.

"And?" Al's curiosity peeking.

"'We have the anthrax.'"

"Come on, what does it really say!" Ed's macabre comic allusion died in the wind.

"Okay, okay, here: "'Come along quick I hid in a shadow, soon it come away, relieved I am for forever I see pain, see you pain too, also.' Liberal translation: An important event will occur soon. Whoever wrote the letter is or has been in hiding and will reveal themselves with this event or directly before. He/she will ether kill him/herself or hurt him/herself severely. Apparently the reader will be in the same position." Ed's monotone cleared the conversation, giving little room for Al to reply.

"And?" curiosity deflated, Al tried his best to keep up.

"It means if this was intended for us we're in trouble."

Not far from the two and the little letter was Ray. It was dark, the place around him was dreary and glum. A stench, like the sewer, seemed to seep from the murky room. Rats' nests and beady red eyes dotted the room. "If not long...the whispers." He rounded around. "If only I'd known the whispers." An assortment of metal alloys, plastic polymers, and other materials were piled up on the table. "Blood. If Blood would leave." A single slimy light valiantly shined through its thick film of grim. "It took more..." Ray slid the pile of materials into a small backpack. "I have to give more to get it back."

Ray knelt next to a small, incomplete circle and a few piece of chalk. Small cages were dotted between the rats and nests. "Equivalent exchange: sanity for sanity; lies for lies; power for power." Ray grabbed a large covered cage, the content screeching and howling with horrible conviction. He removed the cover and placed the thrashing cage at the center of the "Broken Circle".

"Evil for evil; mind for mind; beast for beast."

The circle activated without input from its creator. The creature the cage contained, a primate of some sort, went berserk as it was transmuted into nothingness. The sudden silence started Ray. Swirling energies and other auras lingered. Ray breathed these in, his own energies and aura pulsing with the new influx of power.

"Much better, the deterioration is quickening. If I keep this up much longer I might end up a vegetable." He looked around. "Wasn't I about to write a letter?"


	3. Bad Trip

**Blood-Mail**

**Story by Alphie Iota**

**After Hiromu Arakawa's**

**"Fullmetal Alchemist" © 2004 Hiromu Arakawa/SQUARE ENIX**

**My beta was a paper clip, so if it has any errors…**

Bad Trip

A world of science, a world where people throw away their consciousness to seek the power they worship, yet in their own mind. I was there again, yet not afraid; I knew that it was more an illusion than anything else.

"Yet you still wallow in your foolishness, no?" What was it now? This was not the voice I remembered… "Fear not, my child, open your eyes foolish one." I tried to do as the voice commanded; slowly I peeled back my eyes to reveal my environment. It was again, yet different. The presence of space without boundary, yet it seemed compact and small. The deathly pale room sucking life out of whoever might gaze to long kept its ghostly pallor. And there was a creature, solid black, not black beautiful as in the night sky, the beast seemed to be covered head to toe in sticky tar, hardened around it in an unbroken shell of shadowy roundness.

"I see what you seek. You seek knowledge. You wonder at your existence. What a sorry sight you are." The apparition let out a course sneer, opening its crimson eyes, bloodshot and angry fire. "I see the answer where you are blind. I know the proclamation where you are stupid. Your existence is like a nail in my skull, forever and always piercing my thoughts. You have this conviction within you that no matter how hard this road gets you'll continue on, but why? Why would you waist away to a devotion you don't even know is real?"

It was a knife through my heart, all these daggers seared in honey struck true. "No, I…it just won't…" I couldn't help but cry. "I know what I am."

"Do you." It whispered. I held my breath. "Do you know what you are?" It screamed. "Can you possibly contemplate where all this is leading?" The creature was hysterical. "Could you possibly fathom the endless complexities of your very existence?"

"…"

"Ray Hierru, speak my name!" The thing hissed. "You know the words."

"…"

"Would you disgrace your father by your insolence?"

"No."

"Close, say the word, it be my name, pure."

"Evil." I fell to the ground, my chest heaving with lack of air, my sobs echoing off infinitely.

"Why do you think you believe the rune is at the center of your back?" The ebon creature strode over to where I lie weeping. "There is no such rune. You where not created by man's sloppy alchemy. No, you where created from Sable, the darkness deity." The thing plunged its clawed hand deep into my back. "And if you be not careful I shall come to reclaim my soul." It withdrew its hand and revealed a small rock to my view. The stone glowed garnet and violet. Pulsing, first slowly, then quicker as it began to be absorbed into Sable.

The darkness started to gnaw at my mind. Sable was reclaiming me…

"I shall let you keep your life, but adhere to my law, feel my blood in your veins. I be not close to the truth, I am the truth, your truth."

_Sable… the ebon apparition… the greatest power evil holds over men is the thought that it doesn't exist. What a joke._


End file.
